


Gone to Plan

by rosy_cheekx



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Coughing, Fever, Gen, Sickfic, The Magnus Archives Season 1, i just miss this crew okay, subtle jmart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:47:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27754072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosy_cheekx/pseuds/rosy_cheekx
Summary: Goddamn it, now they would be worrying about him and asking questions and wasting their time and his time and god his head hurt and Jon was shaking he was cold hewashotandcoldandmiserable-
Relationships: Martin Blackwood & Sasha James & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist & Tim Stoker
Comments: 11
Kudos: 151





	Gone to Plan

**Author's Note:**

> Me? Post something that isn't podfic? Astounding.
> 
> My first piece of writing. Let me know if you like it!

Jon hates taking days off. The archive’s been in chaos since he took over but not for lack of trying. But he’s in charge, he’s _The Archivist,_ and he needs to prove to Elias that he’s qualified for the job, that his offhand comments and glances when he thinks Jon can’t see are wrong. He’s good enough. He has to be.

So that’s why he’s not called off. He can’t miss a day, even if the thermometer hovered around a high 38 last night. There’s too much work to do and too much to prove to himself to Elias. Jon’s not stupid though, he’s got his scarf wound around his face as not to spread his germs to Rosie as he passes her, or his assistants. (Thank the powers that be that it’s January, and his scarf, gloves, and bundled torso blend in with the other Londoners hustling through the streets.) Jon’ll get there early and leave late so he can minimize the contact he has with everyone else. He doesn’t think he’s contagious, but he plans to lock himself in his office and record statements all day, just in case.

_But when have things ever gone to plan?_

So here he is, the January chill a welcome relief to his feverish skin as he travels the short block into the Magnus Institute from his usual bus stop. Its not yet 8, and the sun is finally cresting the skyline, a watery grey light reminding the weary man of just how early it is. With shaking hands, he unlocks the glass doors of the humble building with the key Elias had given him all those weeks ago _(“I noticed you’ve seemed rather overwhelmed during work hours. If you think coming in early or leaving late will help you do your job better, who am I to stop you?”_ ) and hurries his way into the building and down into the archives, burying a cough into his scarf as he locks himself into his dark office.

_It’ll be fine. You’ll be fine._ Jon reckons he can go a day without seeing his assistants; Tim and Sasha are happy to occupy themselves without his direction and Martin—well, with any luck he’ll be too ~~intimidated~~ preoccupied with his work to bother him after Jon rejects his first offer of tea _. Tea would be nice though,_ Jon thinks as he closes his office door and surveys the piles of paperwork and manila folders haphazardly covering and lining the area around his desk. He falls into his chair, the metal legs screeching against the cement in a way that has him seeing stars. Jon hadn’t realized his head was pounding, but god he was sorely aware of it now. He rattles a cough into his elbow that lasted a full thirty seconds; the effort of it left him sweating and he peels off a few layers of his ensemble rapidly, discarding scarf, gloves, overcoat, and two oversized sweaters (one being a _What The Ghost_ sweater he’d stolen from Georgie and had consequently “lost”).

Jon rakes a hand through his curls, grossly aware of the thin sheen of sweat on his scalp and opens the first of the manila folders piled high on his desk, just about eye-level. He leaves his fingers tangled in his curls, tugging slightly, hoping the pressure will help him stay focused, and stares at the words on the page. Reading has been a cornerstone of Jon’s personality, but looking at the page now, he wasn’t sure he had ever been literate. The letters swirled and morphed on the page, pulsing slightly to the beat of his pounding head.

He’s not sure how long he’s been staring at the page, this same page of the same folder, the statement of…someone…when he hears a cacophony of familiar laughter outside his door, in the bullpen where the three other desks and three other chairs resided. Sasha is laughing, likely at something Tim had said. Normally, he finds the laughter of his ~~friends~~ coworkers delightful, even calming, but the pitch of Sasha’s voice feels unbearable today, too high and just sharp enough to send a shiver of irritation down his spine. Or was he just cold? _God, he’s freezing._ He looks around desperately for his discarded sweaters and pulled them back over his head, just managing to pull the second sweater over his torso before an onslaught of shaking takes over his body and he’s quaking uncontrollably in his seat until the shivers die down. His jaw aches from the chattering of his teeth and he kneads it with his thumbs while trying to massage his temples with his other fingers. Jon ignores the knock on the door to his office, choosing on a whim to let them believe he wasn’t here at all, while booting up his laptop. Maybe reading the statement aloud will help him comprehend it.

-

“Jesus—fuck!” He had made his way, painfully, through the whole statement, pausing through bouts of chills and hot flashes, taking almost an hour to record what would usually take twenty minutes. It had seemed to record on his laptop just fine, but now that he was trying to listen back to it, the audio was nothing but static, though the wavelengths in the audio file would suppose otherwise. How the _hell_ was he supposed to do his job if he couldn’t even trust his equipment to hold up its end of the bargain? Jon slammed his hands against the desk in frustration as he cursed his laptop, cursed Elias, cursed this _stupid fucking job_ , completely forgetting he had decided to pretend not to be here. The low murmur of conversation that had been floating from the bullpen pauses for a moment, before becoming quieter and more intense. _Goddamn it, now they would be worrying about him and asking questions and wasting their time and his time and god his head hurt and he was shaking he was cold hewashotandcoldandmiserable-_

“…Jon?” Comes a hesitant voice from the other side of the door, mercifully without a knock. “Are-are you in there? Are you alright?”

“’course I’m alright, Martin,” he spat the name like it burnt him to say it. “I’m a grown man, I don’t need babysitting.”

“You sure about that, boss?” Tim. Goddamn. They had the entire cavalry outside his office. “None of us saw you come in and Sash and I were here before nine, which mean you either spent the night or were here _way_ too early, which I’m pretty sure violates Archive rules.”

Jon opens his mouth to respond but his words are buffeted back by a coughing fit that rattles his chest and leaves his throat raw. “Quite sure, thank you. Just—” Another fit, mercifully shorter. “—a little under the weather today.”

“Can you just open the door?” Ever the diplomat, Sasha’s voice was plaintive and serious. “That sounds serious, Jon. We can make you some tea or get you some cough suppressant-“

“I did just buy a lemon tea that’s s’posed to be great for a cough,” Martin adds, voice pitching up eagerly for a moment.

Jon hopes his silence speaks for him as another wave of chills rips through his spine, leaving his entire body aching with the tremors.

“Sims, here’s the deal.” Tim’s voice was serious now, the playful banter gone. “We are trying to be respectful, but the door isn’t locked. We can come in if we need to.”

Jon wants to be angry with them. He feels angry, how _dare_ they not trust him to know his own limits, to treat him like a child, ~~to care for him and love him like family.~~ He opens his mouth to tell them off, but of course, his body betrays him. A cough rattles through him so hard that he bends over involuntarily, doubled over by the force of his lungs trying to eject themselves from his ribcage, and slams his head on the edge of the desk in the process. He groans, the blow doing nothing to ease his headache, quite the contrary, and he knows he’s lost all hope of his assistants leaving him alone.

A chorus of “Jon!” and “are you alright?” come from the other side of the door before he hears a mumbled “fuck it” and hears the door swing open and the cacophony of shoes on his cement floor.

“Jesus, Jonathan Sims.” The archivist’s eyes are squeezed tight, pain and fever overwhelming his senses, hands balled in fists held against to his chest, trying to fight the tremors wracking his body. Jon feels cool hands against his forehead and cheeks. “You’re burning up. Sasha, grab the first aid kit, will you?” They shouldn’t be doing this; they have more important things to right now. They have leads to chase and statements to file and _he can deal with this himself he’ll be fine._ He opens his eyes, ready to tell the trio off and make a curt rejection of their help, calm and composed, but his vision is swirling now just like the statement was earlier; he can’t seem to focus on any of the faces in front of him. He feels the tremors ease slightly as his body turns hot now, feels his face flush and skin prickle with sweat, and suddenly he needs to be on the floor. _The cement is cool and dry and it’ll make him feel better_ -

“Woah-hey! Jon! Tim-help me…” “We got you, boss man, stay upright for now, yeah? Let’s set him down gently, ready?”

“Thermometer says 39— _Jesus._ I grabbed some water. Should we call 999?”

“ _Don’t_.”

“Don’t what, Jon? Call the ambulance?”

“Don’t…call me Jonathan…”

-

Jon’s eyes open, wincing, to the harsh ceiling lights of the document storage room. He feels weighted down, limbs heavy, and as he adjusts to the room he certainly wasn’t in earlier, he looks down to see a mountain of fabric covering his body. Sweaters, coats, blankets, scarves, hats, shrugs, every scrap of cloth in the entire institute must be piled on him right now. No wonder he can barely move his arms.

“Oh, hey, Jon.” A cool, soft hand passes over his scalp and smooths out his curls, and Sasha comes into view, hair swinging over her shoulders, expression soft. “You scared us a bit there.”

Jon blinks for a moment, mouth open as he tries to find words and croaks out a cracked, “Sorry.”

Her soft laugh, tinkling like a bell, sounds calming again. “Don’t worry about it. It’s a good day for the archives if the scariest thing is a bit of a fever. Here.” She holds out a water bottle, and he squirms his hands out of his cocoon of layers to accept it, not realizing how thirsty he was until the cool liquid passes his cracked lips. “How does your head feel?”

Jon presses a hand to his forehead lightly, feeling a small square of gauze at his hairline. He frowns slightly, searching his fever-addled memory for what caused it. _Right, the coughing fit_. “I’ve been better,” he mumbles diplomatically. “Headaches mostly gone, though.” It was a dull throb now that his neck was constantly tensing against the shivers that had wracked his thin frame.

“You can thank Martin for that, actually. Apparently he’s a pro in head and neck messages. Who would’ve guessed, right?” Tim’s voice calls, just out of sight, and Jon sits up on his elbows to see the rest of his staff, sitting on the floor, surrounded by files, laptops illuminating their faces. Martin shrugs shyly, gaze flicking between Jon and his laptop like he wasn’t sure where to look, mumbling something about migraines, or maybe his mum. “We should start a side business. Been trying to think of good names all afternoon.”

“Afternoon?” Jon croaks, glancing fervently for the clock he knew wasn’t in the document storage room. “How long-“

“Like four or five hours. You woke up a couple times to drink some water and take some paracetamol and fever reducers, which is the only reason you’re not in your own private ward at St. August’s.”

Jon frowns to himself. Four or five hours? He’s wasted a whole day, not only for himself but for his staff too. “Right well, thank you all for watching after me, but I feel fine now. You’re all welcome to return to your desks.”

Martin huffs out a laugh this time, something of pure incredulity. “Right, like we’re going to pretend you _didn’t_ pass out with a fever of 39 into my arms and _weren’t_ shaking like a leaf and sweating and coughing so hard you nearly gave yourself a concussion-“ Tim presses a hand to the other man’s shoulder firmly and he cuts himself off.

“Alright. Point made.” Jon’s voice wavered more than he likes, and he watches the two men rise to stand behind either side of Sasha.

“Jon,” Sasha’s voice is soft. “We were worried about you. You’re our boss and our friend, and we don’t want anything bad to happen to you.”

“Especially since you control our pay raises.”

“Tim!” A swat to his chest from two hands, one small and dark, the other larger and pale.

“Why did you even come in today?” Martin’s eyes are softer now, the bite that was in them earlier replaced with compassion. Compassion for Jon.

“I-I really _don’t_. But…thank you. I see your point.” Jon sits up now, watching the top few layers of bundling tumble off him in a small avalanche, but pulls as much of the fabric as he can over his form to shield himself from his own admissions. No use in putting up a front now. “I suppose I’ve been feeling overwhelmed. Overworked, even. I was worried about the consequences of being behind with all—all the statements and write-ups and supp-supplementals and figured I could get through a day without incident and take the weekend to recover. I was wrong, clearly.”

In lieu of harassing him over being wrong, Tim chews his lip thoughtfully for a moment. “You know, we’re your assistants for a reason. We saw how much you have on your plate right now.” He gestured to the little castle of manila he and Martin had been sitting in. “Half of that is stuff you could have given to us. But, either way, the Archive won’t crumble if Jonathan Sims takes a sick day. Hell, I’ll bet you a round of drinks at Molly’s it’ll still be standing after a sick week.” His eyebrow is cocked playfully, but the impact of his words is not lost.

Jon rubs a hand against the nape of his neck, the miraculous lack of tension reminding him of _Martin massaged his head_ and the thought is so intimate he blushes and suddenly can’t meet the eyes of his assistants. ~~He wishes he could remember it.~~ _Perish the thought._

“A compromise,” Jon offers, finally focusing his fever-addled mind. “Two rounds if you trust me to come back when the fever’s gone.”

“Sounds like a deal.” Tim’s hand is the one he shakes, half in jest and half deadly serious, but it’s Martin’s eyes he can’t tear his gaze from.


End file.
